Update Nov/Dec 2007

Boring stuff first

Memberships: The club membership year runs from 1 Oct to 30 Sep so this is another useful reminder that club memberships for the current year are now due. As at 6 December we’ve received membership fees from the Runners (/ Triathletes) listed below, so if your name is NOT on the list we’ll be assuming the form+cheque will soon be in the post or Norma’s hands.

The next Runners / Jogleader council meeting will take place on Tue 8 Jan, Currie Rugby club, at 7:30. This is where we confirm arrangements for running groups, future events etc, and is open to all runners.

The Annual reminder about Scottish Athletics Ltd registration ( SAL Number)
Scottish Athletics Number: Where a Race Entry form asks for “Registration Number”, “Scottish Athletics Number”, “SAL Number”, or any variant on “xxxx number”, it is referring to a registration number issued by Scottish Athletics to those who register with them. This is a registration scheme run entirely by Scottish Athletics and is nothing to do with the club (we do not issue numbers). Details are on the Scottish Athletics web-site. It is MANDATORY for folk who wish to compete in Scottish Championship events (there are a few of us who do!), and it also entitles folk to the £2 discount (or non-levy depending on your viewpoint) rate for race entries.

It used to be the case that the number they issued didn’t change from year to year, but owing to abuse of the system they started issuing new numbers to everyone last year to simplify policing. 

Entry form for races:   Please put in “Harmeny” for the club as it:

(a) makes it easier to find everyone on result websites,

(b) when race organisers calculate club trophies based on first “nn” finishers from a club, it means they can readily identify everyone from a club.

(c) it’s our official club name

Fun Night, Fri 16 Nov
Many thanks to Martin and Norma Bone for a night with a real difference. The depths of our memory banks were trawled, and enlightened with some amazing snippets. Long forgotten, (and in many cases never-fully-acquired) skills were dusted off. And as for what went on when we were all blindfolded…..

The annual December Run and Become sale started at 9am on Wednesday 5^th December - call into the store, open 9.30 - 6.00pm Monday – Saturday. (Note: the club member discount of 10% does not apply to Sale items)

Website Illustrated
The archive of publishable pictures has been gathered together and put onto the website, or in some cases linked to where it already exists elsewhere. See how many folk you can recognise at www.pentlandrunners.org.uk (and follow link to the Gallery).

Quite often folk appear in running pictures on other clubs’ sites, so if you’ve spotted a member (inc yourself) out there in cyberspace please let me know and we’ll link to it. The more incriminating the better.

 The whole website is in the process of being moved to a new hosting service with bungs more disk space so we can publish more pictures. This will mean that if you have any individual pages bookmarked on the old site they will eventually stop working. 

 “C&B News” Trophies
There will be a couple of new trophies to award this year courtesy of the Currie & Balerno News. These will be awarded annually to the Male and Female who have improved the most over the last year.

London Marathon Places
For the last 8 years we have been awarded at least one club place in the Flora London Marathon. This year, someone in their office screwed up and wrote to me saying that we were not entitled to any club places as the club was  “…not affiliated to England athletics”. I replied (in a not totally un-restrained manner) basically telling them to check the facts in front of their eyes and sort it out. 

Well, they did, and whether it’s as a sign of contrition or they’ve too many club places left over, the club has been awarded THREE places this year. 

In previous years first priority has gone to club members (ie memberships up to date) who had applied through the public ballot and been unsuccessful. I’m aware of 2 members who are in this position, but if there are any more, please let me know.

If any other members (who did not apply through the public ballot) are definitely interested, please let me know as there may be a remaining spare place (no promises!).

Rigg Race 2008 (& Beyond)
The annual Rigg Race is one of the oldest road races in East Scotland, and Harmeny has been the lead organiser nearly every year since the mid 90’s (when the then Gala Committee wanted to drop all but Gala day activities). I did it for 8 years, and for the last 3 years Alex Gordon has been our main contact point / organiser. If we want this event to continue we will need some fresh blood from the club to get involved in the organisation to acquire the “know-how” that we’ve built up over the years and to add fresh ideas. Make it happen!

Running during Christmas Holidays
We don’t stop, so normal meeting times at Balerno HS (Mon, Wed & Sun) should continue as usual, but check with your jogleader if there’s any groups not catered for.

Boxing Day run: It’s become a bit of a tradition to meet up at 10:00 on Boxing Day to (a) display all the new gear Santa brought and (b) run off some of the previous day’s excesses.

Saughton track will be closed on Thu 27 Dec and 3 Jan, but all being well it will be back to normal training on Thu 10 Jan (6:30-7:30).

Performance Details

 Glen Clova Half, 10 Nov
By Ian May  “The Glen Clova half marathon course has been described by Iain Morrice as being undulating.   I assumed after a mile that we had perhaps passed through the undulating part – but worse was to come as I am sure the “ups” became more frequent without the corresponding “downs”.  The weather was wet and cold enough for runners to be unable to decide what to wear – those opting for less layers being rewarded towards the end as the sun came out and reminded us what a fabulously scenic Glen it is, particularly with the hills on either side.  The foresight of the road builders also amazed me in that the roads either side of the Glen formed an almost exact half marathon course!  Andrew Nielsen had a tremendous run coming second.

The hospitality of the organising club, Forfar Road Runners, was excellent with stovies and coffee available at the end in the Glen Clova Hotel.

This is must do again race – obviously with a good representation of Pentland Runners a number of members agree!  The same club organise the Forfar multi-terrain half marathon early in the year – another race to have a go at!”

2              1:17:05    Andy Neilson
37            1:27:50    Richard Gray
43            1:29:42    Alan Kerr
49            1:30:56    Stefan Knupfer
51            1:31:23    Ian Morrice
122          1:40:24    Iain May
129          1:40:46    Verity Missen
150          1:44:12    Paul Thompson (est time) 

Strathaven 10 k, 18 Nov
Bob Turner’s good form in New York has obviously carried over to the dreicher conditions encountered in a Scottish winter, with a time of 34min 17 for 3^rd place at Strathaven, and a new club Best Performance time for a 10k road race. 

The big question is, if he hadn’t indulged in so much pre-emptive fluid replacement at the social evening 36 hours earlier, what would his time have been?  

3               Robert Turner      34.17 

Kirkcaldy Cross Country, 25 Nov
This was the second of the East District Cross Country League Races.  The course, about 9 – 10k for the men and 6k for the women, was a single circuit through parkland and farmland with one or two sharp inclines and a little mud! As usual the pace was very rapid!  The results confirm that the ladies are faaaaaaaar superior to the blokes when it comes to tackling the mud. We had 5 blokes at Kirkcaldy, not quite enough for a full team, so the competition to see who would finish higher in their respective leagues will go to the girls assuming they can get a team out at the last meeting at Livingston on Sat 19 Jan. Given the results of the girls I think the blokes might have been struggling to match them. At least the guys had enough to get a veterans team score.

We designated this as a handicap event and using the last 2 years as guidelines the men’s 10k targets were used, and the girls 10k targets were divided by 1.4. For the men’s prize it would have been very close if Ian May hadn’t continued his habit of getting faster every month. 

It was a very close result for the girls with Verity just pipping Margy by a few seconds. And based on Jo’s first club outing, “the handicapper” has given her a 10k target of 43 mins

Kirkcaldy Cross-Country                     Handicap               Race       (Under)
                                                                Target                     Time       / Over
                                                                Time                                       
Ian          MAY                                       0:45:00                     0:43:45    (0:1:15) 1^st Male
Paul        HOUSTON                             0:37:20                     0:37:04    (0:0:16)
Thomas  WHITE                                   0:42:30                     0:42:14    (0:0:16)
David     GIBSON                                  0:39:30                     0:39:38    0:00:08
Verity     MISSEN                              0:32:30                     0:32:41    0:00:11 1^st Female
Margy    LEITCH                                   0:32:09                     0:32:31    0:00:22
Richard  GRAY                                      0:40:30                     0:41:39    0:01:09
Alex        GORDON                                0:33:02                     0:34:35    0:01:33
Christina DOYLE                                   0:35:00                     0:36:56    0:01:56
Fiona      DONALDSON                       0:33:34                     0:35:57    0:02:23
Claire      MURDOCH                            0:35:43                     0:39:05    0:03:22

Water of Leith “Half” 1 Dec
This is an unofficial race organised by some guys we know, with a race limit of 70 runners, “invitation only” through contacts. It’s run as a pursuit handicap (ie slowest runners set off first), and is reckoned to be 13.5 – 13.6 miles (ie a good bit more than a half). We had four runners this year and some interesting times given the estimates they had given the organisers. This event scores very high on the post race home-baked goodies on offer. 

Pos          Name                       Est          Act         Diff
20 DOUGLAS, Anne            1.57         1.56.47    -0.13
29 BOYLE, Lindsey               1.57         1.57.50    +0.50
46 BONE, Norma                  2.00         2.04.57    +4.57
51 SYME, David                    1.56         2.02.36    +6.36
64 finishers

International News
We’ve recently heard from Catherine Porter who moved to Dubai in 2006 that she and Ryan are now the proud parents of baby Calum Robert. That (and the heat) may have somewhat curtailed Catherine’s running recently.

Other Club News
For the 7^th consecutive year the club has received a Community Cashback Award of £250 from the Royal Bank of Scotland. This, along with other development funding provided by parents formerly involved with the junior section will be used to replace our old high jump mats in Balerno High School. We hope to have our first happy landings early in the New Year. 

Forthcoming Events
For an event with a difference Iain’s suggesting folk have a look at http://deerstalker.cmsdevsite.com/default.asp 

The full Scottish Athletics fixture list for the coming season is at http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk